


The Only Constant

by Ezran



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Existential Crisis, M/M, Philosophy, Post-Promised Day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:20:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29138454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ezran/pseuds/Ezran
Summary: "The only constant in life is change." — Heraclitus
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	The Only Constant

_"The only constant in life is change." — Heraclitus_

* * *

Every day he wondered how he could feel that his life was over when was barely twenty — he knew, theoretically, that the world was an endless resource of knowledge. That there was much more to learn than he ever could in one lifetime, that there was so much more to experience that his brain could process or that his body could bear. There had been a time when he'd thought he could read it all and learn it all, but that was just arrogance. He'd been arrogant, terribly stupid and naive, in the past, he knew that now. He'd learned from his mistakes, and wasn't that a sad thing to say at barely twenty. He couldn't even legally drink in all Cretan states and there he was, reflecting on his own errors, how he had learned from them, grown from them. Perhaps he had grown too fast, aged too much too quickly.

There was peace now, whatever that meant. And an infinite combination of choices he could make. He could go west, east or south, or even north for the sake of it— he'd done far more reckless things before he knew half of what he knew now. The world was like an endless mathematical equation waiting to be solved, like an infinite series of books on the most obscure and complex philosophical questions and yet. And yet he was already bored of them, not in the way that he knew the answer wouldn't interest him, but in the way that he knew the answer wouldn't solve anything. There was nothing to be solved anymore, no quest to be fulfilled, no purpose to be achieved, no goal, no target, nothing. Only discovering new things for the sake of them, only places to go just to see the sights, people to meet only to learn their names and their lives, only the world to explore and make his own.

If he was honest with himself, he couldn't deny that the greatest adventure of his life, his greatest purpose, his greatest fight, had ended on the Promised Day. 

At first he thought he could live with it. The fight was over. Amestris was safe, or as safe as it could be now. Everything was still to build, the only way was forward, but it wasn't his job now, it was Mustang's. In his coat pocket he always kept his silver watch and a small handful of cash— five hundred and twenty cenz. He could feel them tap against his thigh with each step and he could hear them clicking, like a mantra, like a promise waiting to be fulfilled. 

It reminded him where he came from, and where he was going, even if he wasn't sure where that was.

Forward was the only way to go now, he supposed. For a while it seemed that his forward was West, while Alphonse's was East. The first time that he stepped onto a train platform and watched his brother waiting on the opposite one, going in the opposite direction, felt like turning the page on their childhood for good. Turning the page on who they were, who they had been. Changing one's ways and finding one's own path wasn't easy, Edward quickly found out.

For a few weeks he still had the reflex to turn to Alphonse to make a comment on something he found interesting, or to tell him about some idea he'd had, only to be reminded by silence and the absence of an armor or a flock of blond hair that Alphonse wasn't by his side anymore. For eighteen years he'd been Alphonse's brother, exclusively ; in the meantime he'd also been the Fullmetal for a few years. In retrospect, he didn't know what it was to be Edward. Simply Edward, on his own, as his own person.

He looked at himself in the mirror every night and every morning, scrutinizing his own golden gaze, wondering, guessing, like he was looking into someone else's eyes. Someone else's soul, according to a Cretan philosopher. He'd never paid any mind to his own appearance, only the way people perceived him. He let his hair grow a bit, enjoying their thickness and fullness just for the sake of it. It felt idiotic, trivial even, but he still did it. It felt new, exciting and vain, but he didn't give a damn.

He looked at those stranger's eyes while he brushed his hair morning and night, tilting his head and watching the play of light, the speckles of copper lost in the richness of the gold. It was like looking at a horizon, unsure if it was dusk or dawn, unsure of what laid beyond the skyline.

* * *

One time zone ahead of where Edward was, a man was trying to make the most of going forward. 

Forward was the only way to go now, even if forward meant not moving from his spot on the map. Mustang hadn't been surprised when he'd learned that the Elric boys had both left the country. The only surprising detail had been that they'd gone their separate ways, even if the more he thought about it the more it made sense. Alphonse had an entire life to catch up on, years of sensorial experiences, of human experiences to make up for. He had an entire identity to reclaim, he supposed.

What didn't make much sense, at first anyway, was Edward going in the opposite direction. Again, the kid's instincts always seemed to be doing exactly the opposite of what people expected, with little logic or common sense. For a few months he kept an eye on Edward's whereabouts as much as he could. It was like watching a broken compass with its needle spinning in every direction, drawing circles inside its own dial. Probably that Edward's mind was doing the same inside his own head. 

The world was a much smaller place after you'd faced death, he knew from experience, and Edward had faced it over and over until he'd come close to understanding its truth, its mysteries. As close as one could get to the sun. Now there was nothing else to do but to explore every surface that same sun touched, and everything was bathed in its light, which meant that no matter the novelty, the thrill of it would fade as quickly as it came. He himself would probably never experience the thrill of the fight again.

He felt as though the moment he had worked toward his whole life was evading him. He felt as though he had spent years climbing a mountain, only to arrive at its peak and realize that it was no peak at all, that the hardest part was still to come, that he still had to make the climb. Only that now he was standing at the edge of a cliff, unsure about whether he should take a step forward, unsure of what he would find beneath his foot— solid rock or melting ice. It was the first time in his life that he felt hesitant about taking a step forward, he'd never questioned himself before, or his ideals, or his ambitions. He was certain of where he was going and why he was striving for it. Perhaps the Elric boy wasn't the only one whose compass was not showing the north. Only his own needle wasn't in his brain but in his heart.

He'd sworn to himself somewhere along the road, way before adulthood and before adolescence, that he would strive to do the best he could, not for himself but for those around him and that nothing would discourage him or distract him from this endeavor. He hadn't expected that his own conscience, his own doubts would be the shadows to darken that glowing, promising horizon.

He only had himself to blame, but everyone to disappoint. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in an hour and a half. I honestly have no idea where I'm going with this.


End file.
